


A hot and cold metaphor Barry

by Green_Sphynx



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Barry sized sammiches, Chronos - Freeform, M/M, Metahuman Leonard Snart, Metahuman Mick Rory, Oculus fix, Timeline What Timeline, mention of a lot of other characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-05 03:20:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17911028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Green_Sphynx/pseuds/Green_Sphynx
Summary: Barry watches his life fall apart around him after Flashpoint, but nothing could have hurt him as much as hearing that his boyfriends blew each other up along with the Oculus. Without Len and Mick he's not up to the challenge that Savitar poses, not with his grief overwhelming him.It only takes two metas for Barry to come back out of this slump.





	A hot and cold metaphor Barry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueelvewithwings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueelvewithwings/gifts).



They came back to tell him what had become of his lovers, but it was as confusing as it was upsetting.

There was a problem with Mick, they explained. Len marooned him somewhere for his own - and more importantly the team's mission's - good. The problem was that the Time Masters picked him up there, tortured and brainwashed him, and turned him against the Legends. Instead of a mildly recalcitrant team member they now had a skilled hunter after their arses in Mick.

And Mick persisted, hunting them even after failing repeatedly, even after their attempts to reach out to him and apologise. He persisted in being the bad guy right up until he found Len in the middle of sacrificing his own life for the rest of the team to get away from the exploding of the Oculus - which Barry understood to be some sort of all-powerful window through time. As they explained to him, Mick switched lanes faster than you could say 'Heatwave' and tried to save Len from his self-imposed sacrifice.

But they were both stubborn assholes, as Barry well knew, and apparently the last seen of them was Len and Mick shooting their cold and heat gun, respectively, at each other as the Oculus blew with the force of a small nuke.

Apologies were made and Barry was left alone with his grief, and nobody to really support him. He had so hoped that his boyfriends would be the only ones not affected by his mistakes with Flashpoint. Instead of 'just' the mess of a new timeline being different, he got something far worse.

He couldn't go to Cisco, because Cisco was mad over the death of his brother. He couldn't go to Caitlin, because she was freaking out over new ice powers. He couldn't go Joe or Iris because the unexpected rift between them over Iris' mother made them more likely to complain about that - or worse, act relieved that Barry's criminal boyfriends were no longer around - than be there for him in his grief. Oliver and Felicity were too much of a mess with each other to be of any help. Besides, the last time he tried Felicity for some emotional support she sent him of telling him to 'fix it'.

He was alone and had nobody to turn to.

 

It took him months to realise that he had secluded himself too far in his grief. That he thought the worst of his friends when he shouldn't have - Caitlin, Iris and even Oliver would have definitely put their issues aside to support him, in hindsight. Maybe even Joe, despite his anger over Barry's choice in partners.

It took _months_ of letting his pain fester inside of him, until finally an invasion of frigging aliens came around to surprisingly stitch them all back together.

Professor Stein and Jax recognised the state Barry was in and the mistake they had made leaving him alone after telling him both his boyfriends died. Oliver stood by him even when everyone else took his volunteered scapegoating as a chance to blame him for all.

And then Cisco forgave him, after repeating the very mistake Barry had made himself.

It was the first glimmer of hope he'd seen in a long time, even if it hurt to see the Legends without Len and Mick.

It was a start. A start of hope that gave him the courage necessary to run to the future, expecting that his future self could provide him with the answer to Savitar's demise.

He nearly didn't return.

There was no hope. Iris was going to die because Savitar could not be defeated for another few years. Joe would never forgive him. Caitlin would be lost to Killer Frost. Wally would end up catatonic and Cisco without his hands.

This was not a future worth fighting for. It had been hard enough to keep going after the loss of Len and Mick, but knowing he'd lose _everyone_ he cared about, with no solution? No trick, no clever set-up, not even a hard application of brawn that would help?

He offered what remained of his friends no explanation upon return, but left for the abandoned safe house where he had spent his last night with Len and Mick to curl up in the dusty, _musty_ bed.

Barry had nothing left to give. Only tears for Len and Mick and a hopeless and lonely future.

 

When he woke up, he was at first certain he was actually still asleep, his mind playing tricks on him by letting him dream about what he wanted most but had given up hope for. But aside from the warm body curled around his back, the covers drawn over them that Barry certainly hadn't touched himself, and the other body squeezing him close to a chest into a sandwich, there was still the musty smell around him that he would definitely not have made part of his dream. The crackle of the comms in his discarded suit had fallen silent - his team had been trying to make him answer through the comms and by calling his phone for at least an hour before he drifted off in exhaustion. But instead of silence in the remote building, he found himself framed by the sound of breathing as much as by the feeling of two hard bodies.

The musty blankets were somewhat overwhelming in their smell, but Barry could still distinctly note the difference of old sweat added to it. Old, disgusting but very recognisable sweat that he remembered scowling at many times before making demands that Mick take a shower.

"It seems our Scarlet is waking up," an overly familiar voice purred into his ear, the body molded against his back shifting slightly as to stretch out the muscles in his back.

Barry was upright and standing at the foot of the bed in a fraction of a second, staring wide eyed at his boyfriends on the bed. His boyfriends, who had died in an explosion that would've scattered them in tiny little pieces all over time itself, unable to be tracked or saved.

His _dead_ boyfriends, both smirking at him.

Or they were smirking, right until Len sat up sharply under the covers, looking alarmed, and Mick moved to sit up with a confounded frown on his face.

"Scarlet? Why are you crying? We told you we were coming back, didn't we?"

"Y-you-you _what_?" Barry couldn't help the stammer, nor the way his voice raised and _cracked_. "You _told_ me _what_? Last thing I heard was you two shooting at each other and blowing up into fucking _time_!"

"What do you mean, _last_ thing you heard?" Len stood up abruptly, approaching Barry with that alarmed look still on his face, but Barry couldn't trust this. He couldn't expect this to be real, not after what he was told. So he backed away, ignoring the glimmer of something else, something that looked _hurt_ , flashing across Len's face.

"The Oculus blew up," Mick stated bluntly. "But I was a time bounty hunter who got taught by the Time Masters. There were contingencies. Just took us a while to hail the Waverider and save us from Medieval biscuit country."

"We wanted to come back here immediately," Len explained carefully, "but the Legends had already been back to this timeline at that point, and they were fighting smart enemies. If we came back here, it would lead their enemies straight to this timeline and let them know this was the Legends' - _our_ \- original timeline. We couldn't risk them coming for us or anyone we care about, not until we dealt with them."

"We sent a note so you'd know."

"I've never seen any note," Barry hissed between clenched teeth. "I heard about you getting yourself killed and no more. I had to go tell Lisa and she tried to shoot me for it. I've been- I've been grieving with nowhere to go for almost a _year_." A sudden thought struck him, and a sound escaped him before he could stop it, a maniacal little giggle. "The note probably didn't make it through Flashpoint. Just another thing I fucked up."

Both men's hesitation to answer that was all Barry needed to know it was true. Maybe the message arrived in the timeline Barry abandoned before Flashpoint, or in Flashpoint itself, and not in this new timeline. If the Legends were not affected by Flashpoint due to their time hopping, it made perfect sense for Len andMick to send out a message and remember sending it, even if the timeline it arrived in got erased.

"I told you we should've double-checked," Len finally muttered, dragging a hand over his short hair with a frustrated sigh.

"And I told you it could fuck shit up," Mick responded, tone hard. "Knowing who we were dealing with, I was probably right too."

Barry blinked away angry tears to squint at the two men across from him. These dynamics were… wrong. Mick overriding Len's plans with logic rather than blind rage was practically unheard of. Mick's words themselves seemed off, even.

"…since when do you use words like 'contingencies'?" Barry blurted at Mick, confused.

Mick's brow pinched in confusion but Len snorted, even if it looked almost sheepish. Almost. Captain Cold did not do sheepish, after all.

"That would be Chronos speaking. When we were first stranded in the past after the Oculus Mick was entirely like that. He's grown mostly back to his old self in the months we were stuck there, but brainwashing and torture don't get _undone_."

Mick shrugged uncomfortably, suddenly looking very interested in the wall to his right, and Barry noticed something else.

Len and Mick weren't typically the PDA kind of people, but in private, and especially when someone was upset or a painful subject was broached, there would be some form of touching. Barry had brought a lot of that into their relationship, but the two did it with each other as well, if more sparsely. This would _definitely_ have been the time for a small touch from Len to Mick for both their reassurance, if only because Barry had backed away from any attempt at touch.

It made him realise that Len had curled up under the blankets with him before, and Mick had stayed on top, as if to avoid physical contact.

"What's wrong between you two?" He glanced between them suspiciously. "Still mad at each other for blowing each other up?" He didn't acknowledge that he just accepted they were real. He didn't want to think about that anymore, he just _wanted_ them to be real too much.

Surprisingly, he didn't get a response in gruffness or sulking, but _both_ of them looking embarrassed. Barry never expected to see the day, but here they were.

"The circumstances of the explosion left us with some… extra effects." Len explained, carefully enunciating, as if weighing every word. "We've become… metahumans, in a way. We were shooting the cold and the heat gun when the Oculus exploded and now our powers don't really… _mix_ anymore."

He illustrated by extending a hand to Mick, and Mick rolled his eyes but touched their bare fingers together. There was a hiss of steam and both of them pulled back as if burned - and Barry realised they probably _were_.

"So to sum this up… you two shot your lethal guns at each other - guns that cause an explosion when the streams cross - in the middle of an all-powerful time _thing_ blowing your arses up… and instead of dying, like I was told you did, it gave you meta powers and dropped you together in Medieval England?"

Mick huffed an affirmative, sticking his hands into his pockets awkwardly, and Len pointedly avoided Barry's eyes.

"That about sums it up, yes."

"And rather than finishing the job and murdering each other right there, you made up without touching and came back to scare the shit out of a grieving me and pretend nothing ever happened?"

"Basically, yeah."

It was Mick who broke first, making a gruff noise of impatience and stomping to the door. "I need a drink for this."

"Tell me about it," Barry agreed, voice a little more vicious than usual, and Len actually flinched a little at the sound of it. Len didn't follow Mick out of the room, keeping his eyes on Barry with a scrutiny that Barry couldn't quite place. There was a clear apology in Len's eyes, but also an uncertainty that just didn't _fit_ him.

Barry huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, looking away from Len. "Have Mick make me a sandwich and _maybe_ I'll forgive you two for making me believe you were dead for a year."

Barry didn't look at Len's face, because he knew there would likely be a smirk, seeing as he had pretty much admitted he forgave them already. And how could he help it? They had not made him suffer intentionally and Barry was absolutely desperate for some comfort. Keeping his boyfriends at arm's length because he was upset with them would hurt himself way more than he was willing to at the moment. He was crumbling, falling apart in despair and grief and he _needed_ them more than anything.

And apparently, unexpectedly, he could have them.

"Come on, Scarlet. You can't stay back here to sulk, it's unbecoming for a superhero." Len slowly reached for Barry's hand, as if approaching a skittish animal, and Barry offered it up with a sigh. Feeling Len's fingers curl around his hand was more comforting than he currently cared to admit, and where Len tended to have cold hands, they were now all warm from having been curled around Barry under the blankets before, despite any newly claimed meta powers.

When Len led him into the kitchen, they found Mick already working on three large sandwiches - one extra large, Barry sized - without prompting, a chilled beer bottle within grasp and an empty one already left forgotten near the sink. Len pushed Barry down on a rickety kitchen chair in silence and the enormous, well-filled sandwich was handed to him without a word as well.

Barry didn't have it in him anymore to glare at these conniving criminals. He just tucked in, even though they _all_ knew that by the end of the sandwich all would be forgiven. Manipulative assholes, they were. Too bad he loved them more than anything.

He was taking his last bites when Len carefully put a hand on his arm. "We really had no idea the message never arrived, or we would have tried again until it did. You know that, right?"

Barry sighed, taking his time to lick mayonnaise off his fingers before finally meeting Len's eyes, and then Mick's. "I know. But this past year has been really bad, so…" He breathed in deeply, letting it out in a calming sigh. "Sorry I got angry earlier. It wasn't your fault."

"You were hurting, we understand." Len rubbed his arm, but Barry had to bite his lip to not hear that smooth voice as a sarcastic drawl. It wasn't, but it was so easy to hear it as such.

"Don't apologise, Red," Mick finally grunted. "I did the same thing to Snart in the time we were gone. But with more shooting."

Len cringed and Barry couldn't help a small chuckle.

"The most important thing is that you're both here now." Barry curled his fingers around Len's hand on his arm, squeezing tightly. "I hope you're not planning on going back on the Waverider any time soon, because I'm not letting you leave for a while."

"We weren't planning on leaving for a while." Warm lips brushed against Barry's neck, right under his hairline. "In fact, I believe we made each other promises about not letting you out of our arms for a while. We sadly failed that earlier, but you know us: failure will just make us try harder."

"I remember the recipe," Mick informed them, coming around the table to tug Barry from his chair and wrap arms around him. "Food and cuddles to make a happy speedster. Len had me repeat that for days so I would remember, and now I'm going to use it."

It was impossible not to laugh at that. Barry was chuckling while he was bodily lifted and carried back to the musty bed by Mick, the arms around him strong but gentle, never squeezing too hard where it would be uncomfortable. Len helped to lay Barry down so he wouldn't fall on the bed, but was gently eased down like a porcelain doll. He might have complained if he wasn't enjoying the attention, especially since both his lovers immediately crawled onto the bed to press against his sides.

With Barry on top of the covers, Mick crawled under them this time; Barry assumed he didn't want to burn Barry with prolonged touch. He still wanted to hug Mick as well though, so he turned on his side and wrapped his arms around Mick as well as he could with the blankets in between.

"You both know I'm not fragile or anything. You can hug me - if you burn me it'll heal fast enough."

Mick faltered, looking uncertain on how to answer, and Barry found himself drawn back into a warm embrace from behind.

"It's not just for you, but also to make sure we don't harm each other," Len explained. "To you our touches may be simply hot or cold, but to each other we burn."

"You haven't been able to touch each other at all since that explosion?"

Barry blinked, a bit stunned to find them both nodding. Neither of the men was particularly physical, not like Barry, but they both enjoyed a good romp on a regular basis, and this implied they had been dry for _months_. 

"Not even a kiss?"

"Not even a kiss." No sooner had Len affirmed it or Barry pressed his lips to Len's hard. He took the kiss with little patience, immediately turning over to kiss Mick just as hard next.

"You'll have to touch through me from now on then."

Mick was grinning. "See, this is why we love you, Red."

Barry grinned back, kissing Mick again and rolling on top of him. He struggled with the covers until he had access to the bottom of Mick's shirt, quickly working it up over his chest so he could run his hands over smoothly ridged skin beneath. The scar tissue was something that was purely Mick, covering his arms and his chest in splotches of burns, and Barry loved feeling the texture change under his fingers as he explored Mick anew.

The only thing odd was… how cool Mick's chest was.

Barry's brow furrowed, hands buried deep under Mick's shirt, straddling his lover's hips, and he vaguely noted Mick and Len's faces falling at his expression.

"Mick… you're cold…"

"Yeah… remember we mentioned getting meta powers over shooting our guns at each other?" Len hedged.

"Powers of cold and powers of heat," Barry agreed, splaying his hands and running them back and forth over Mick's skin. He should be feeling his skin running particularly hot, shouldn't he?

"Well… turns out we didn't get powers based on what we were shooting, but based on what we were shot with."

Barry blinked, comprehension slowly dawning.

Len shot Mick with the cold gun, and Mick shot Len with the heat gun.

Mick had cold powers, and Len had heat powers.

"Your… powers got turned around."

Mick's hand came up to lay over Barry's on his chest, the shirt between their hands going cold and rigid with frost. Mick looked highly uncomfortable.

Len, upon further inspection, looked downright miserable, showing Barry his palm up and the air shimmering with heat above it.

Barry knew he should feel sorry for them. Captain Cold with heat powers, and Heatwave with cold powers; it was ridiculous. It was ridiculous and laughable and Barry couldn't help himself.

 

By the time his stomach was cramping from his laughter and the guffawing was dying down to wheezing, he could faintly make out the very sour voice of Len. "At least we cheered him up, didn't we?"


End file.
